Gensokyo, Past and Present
by VentingNonsense
Summary: "Welcome to Gensokyo, Yuuka." Yakumo's smile is light, teasing, but her eyes are hard and cold, as if remembering something unpleasant. "Enjoy your stay." A rather different interpretation of the flower maiden.


**Disclaimer:** If you don't understand Touhou, this story is not for you. The interpretations of the characters could theoretically be considered mine, but the characters belong to Team Shanghai Alice.

**Author's note:** This isn't actually the interpretation of Yuuka I like. I see her as a silly youkai who is kind but often underestimates her own strength. Canonically, she's rather playful (some would say sadistic) and unconcerned with other peoples' affairs. In her only Windows-based game, _Phantasmagoria of Flower View_, she's strong but slow. My interpretation of this is that she's just lazily strolling about, shooting harmless (or what she _thinks_ is harmless) danmaku at everyone teasingly while also enjoying the pleasant flowers; other interpretations are that she's just that slow, which I find hard to believe.

No matter your interpretation of Yuuka Kazami herself, _this is not that Yuuka._ It's an experiment, first and foremost, so I might not even continue this.

**Chapter One: The Border Between Mind and Voice**

"I don't get this," I mumble, for what must have been the fifteenth time in a minute. I turn the diagram over and frown. The map continues to evade my understanding. Finding this old map was a godsend; I'd always had a knack for finding treasures. In fact, I'd call it a secondary ability of mine, if it weren't for the fact that I don't often search for treasure in the first place.

Nor do I often get the chance to use it. I _am_ a mere gardener, after all, and that's what I like to do. I run my own gardening business, and it's not particularly well-paying, but it's what I enjoy, and I _do_ get an honest living out of it. Humble, and _very_ modest, but honest. (Ignoring the many knickknacks I find in the bushes I'm hired to maintain.) On the side, I also run a treasure hunting operation, although I outright refuse to take blatantly illegal jobs.

I just don't have the time to deal with the police.

"I don't get this," I mumble once more. "But this should be the right place…" I look up again at the decrepit shrine. The place, although creepy, unsettling, and _old_, didn't feel like it held any sort of treasure. But, according to the map, this was the place, and the location of this shrine was just off the road enough to be unscavenged by other hunters, which puts me in a rather hopeful mood.

"That depends on your definition of 'treasure'," I hear behind me. I jump and turn around frantically to come face to face with a young blonde woman.

Who seems to also be cut in half. And _floating_.

I desperately withhold the urge to shudder and instead cough politely. "Are you reading my mind?"

"Would it be a surprise if I was?" the young woman asked, her smile turning a bit malevolent.

I take the time to think about this. "Well…not really. I've seen weirder, I suppose."

"I see," the blonde woman states with a frown, and suddenly I feel a chill. I shake it off. This woman is clearly something dangerous.

"Who are you, anyway?" I ask, as politely as I can. Unfortunately, it comes out very bluntly, and I wince; fortunately, the woman seems to regard it as amusing. I've never been good at communicating politely. In my line of work, there really was no point; as a gardener, I don't really have to talk to anyone except in business terms, and as a treasure hunter I've never needed to be polite.

"My name is Yakumo." The woman regards me with piercing eyes, and I shudder minutely, which her perceptive eyes undoubtedly capture. _Damn._ "I can see that you fear me, if only a bit."

"Honestly? It's more of a mixture of your sudden appearance and this damnable cold." I gesture to where the first drops of snow were falling. "I've never been good with the cold."

Yakumo laughs lightly. "And who might you be?"

Instead of answering, I outright tell her, "I can tell that Yakumo isn't your name." At her raised eyebrow, I add, "Or, at least, it isn't your complete name."

"Indeed?" The woman looks at me with interest, although I can definitely see the faint traces of mirth around her eyes. "Do explain how you reached that conclusion."

I open my mouth, but stop and think about it. "You know, I'd rather not. Well," I continue as if I didn't just shun this horrifying abomination of a woman's simple request, "I suppose you can call me Kazami, if we're going to be working together."

The woman, Yakumo, raises both her eyebrows. "Working together…?"

Now it's my turn to be confused. "…Aren't you here to hunt for the treasure? I believe that's what the request said…"

"Treasure hunting? _You?_" This Yakumo woman outright laughs at me. I'm rather nonplussed about the whole situation, so I let it slide, instead merely waiting for her explanation. "I never expected _you_, of all people, to be a treasure hunter."

"Have we met?" I blithely ask instead of gratifying her with a response. The way she refers to me is eerily reminiscent of an old widow recounting the deeds of her late husband, so it's less an offended reaction and more an honestly curious question. Of course, I could just be over-thinking the whole thing. I'm prone to do that, after all…

"Perhaps we have," the woman mysteriously stated, whipping out a fan from seemingly nowhere and covering her mouth with it. "In your future, and in my past."

…What?

"…What?" I finally ask. But this Yakumo woman simply smiles a knowing smile, that somehow manages to set me on edge.

"I certainly didn't expect you to be the one to handle my request. I had thought…" she trails off for a second, then shakes her head. "Well. This is unexpected, sure, but it doesn't change anything, I suppose."

I stare at her for a few minutes. When it becomes apparent that she isn't going to say anything more, I shake myself out of my daze and sigh. "Well, if that's all, let's get going."

I felt no need to elaborate on what is obvious to me, and Yakumo seems to have understood me, as she lets out a mirthless giggle and closes her fan.

Which is strange in and of itself, actually. Most people tend to not understand me and instead angrily ask me to show some manners, even though it should be obvious that I don't care, but this woman simply smiles and goes with it. Heck, she might actually understand what I'm doing, which is…

I'm starting to _like_ this woman.

I'm jolted from my thoughts by the woman in question, who has opened her fan again. "Oh my, I had no idea you felt like that."

Oh. Right. Mind reader.

"It doesn't mean anything," I hastily defend. "Even though you clearly know something, this _is_ the first time we've met."

"Ah, of course, of course." Over her fan, her eyes seem to twinkle in amusement. _This is going to happen a lot, isn't it…?_ "Of course it's going to happen a lot! You're a very interesting person, Kazami."

_Of_ course _I am,_ I tiredly think. "Well, whatever, let's go." The tear in the fabric of space around the woman disappears and I can't help but stare at her outfit as she shows the rest of her torso.

"See something you like?" Yakumo teases, doing a short spin. Well, I suppose I do, seeing as how her dress is so completely outlandish that I can't see if she's serious about it.

"Those aren't acceptable clothes for a treasure hunt," I say, deadpan.

Yakumo laughs. "They're acceptable clothes for you, I can tell."

Despite the embarrassing conversation, I feel no need to blush, and instead reply, "Perhaps, but we're going on a treasure hunt. Not a date."

Oh, _there's_ the blush. I try to fight it off but I feel it burning my face regardless, and Yakumo only laughs harder. "You'd like that, though, wouldn't you, Kazami?" Yakumo asks, and I groan, turning away.

"If you can't follow me, I'm not going to bother with you," I reply, walking into the decrepit shrine. I hear Yakumo's footsteps and what sounds like a cane behind me. Well, I warned her about following me, so I continue onwards briskly.

Entering the shrine, I see absolutely no semblance of treasure anywhere. Well, to be fair, there's also no semblance of _sanity;_ the entire interior of the shrine is cluttered with…_stuff._ I can barely breathe because of the amount of dust in the area. I pull out a portable air purifier from my pocket, set it on the highest mode, and then drop it in the center of the room; within seconds, the air in the room is far more breathable. Yakumo whistles from behind me.

"That's an impressive device, there."

"It's essential for grave-robbing," I reply briskly, lightly tapping the floor with my foot as I walk to find any weak spots. Falling through one would be rather a pain to get over, especially because of this woman behind me.

"I didn't know you did grave-robbing," the woman snarks, and I look at her. She seems to be relatively unfazed by the quality of the shrine, and what I thought was a cane appears to be a light pink parasol.

I shrug at her implied question. "It's interesting." I turn back to my tapping. It's hard enough with the rubbish in front of me; wood chips line the floor and there are many blatant holes in the floor already, but none quite as big as I'd expected. The biggest problem was the shelves; strewn everywhere were things that belonged on them, but the shelves themselves were broken and scattered everywhere. I kneel down and examine a strange gourd-like object. It's purple, with a red rope around it, and strange stickers on certain places. Whatever it is, it certainly looks interesting. I open the cap and sniff at it, before recoiling and closing it again. The gourd smells _rancid._ I rub my nose on my sleeve and work on clearing the floor of this crap by throwing things into the corners of the shrine.

"You aren't scorned by society?" Yukari asks, and I wince. "For being a _woman_ who enjoys doing these dirty jobs?"

"Well…" I think about the question a bit, then decide to ignore it. "What, exactly, am I hunting for?"

"That's what I hired you to find out," the woman says with a wink in her tone. I don't know how she managed to do that, but that's what she did.

I actually stop thinking and turn to her. "How in the world did you wink at me with your voice?"

The woman blinks, obviously not expecting the question. Then she opens her fan and places it over her face again. "Now, now, that would be telling," she tells me in that damnable over-amused tone. I shrug; the question wasn't really important, anyway. I pick up a red dish and fling it into the corner; to my surprise, it doesn't break, just hits the wall with a thud. I pick up a stack of what looks like rotten clumps of paper and throw it into the corner.

"Do you happen to have anyone who cares about you?" Yakumo asks out of nowhere. I blink and turn at her, but she's looking at the crap in the shrine, so I turn back to my work.

I decide to humor her, anyway. "No." I pick up some sort of stone, with a rope tied around it. I don't understand this at all, but it looks kind of pointy, and it's quite heavy, so I place it gently to my right instead of throwing it in the corner. "Everyone I know and love is dead. What about you?" I look at her, stopping for a bit. "Anyone you care about?"

"Perhaps," she looks at me mysteriously. I feel another sudden chill and look away.

I pick up some sort of ball that looks half-black and half-white, but before I can throw it in the corner, Yakumo grabs my hand. "That's it."

I look at her strangely-serious face, then look at the ball in my hand. On closer look, it looks like a taijitu, instead of the perfect split it looked like at first glance. I look back at her. "_This?_ This ball thing is the treasure?" Yakumo nods, perfectly serious. I decide not to joke about it. "…alright."

Since she did pay me to explore this decrepit shrine, I pass her the ball, and she takes it with a look of awe on her face. I'm rather confused about this, but she speaks up again.

"How would you like to go to a new world?"

I look at her. "I have no idea what you're talking about." But she doesn't seem to be paying attention to me, so I walk up to her and snap my fingers in front of her face.

Yakumo looks up, startled. "Um, I…yes." She coughs lightly in one hand, then puts the taijitu ball in her pocket. I'm vaguely impressed that she can even fit that in her pocket. "Well, there's something else I'm looking for."

I raise an eyebrow. "As long as I'm paid for it, I'll find anything." Well, this isn't necessarily true. I've had bad luck on treasure hunts before, where I failed to find a single thing. In fact, in recent days those times have been increasing more and more often, but on the bright side, I _do_ still get paid, even if it's not as much as I would normally get.

But Yakumo waves my statement off. "It's okay, I've already found what I'm looking for." She then smiles at me malevolently.

"I'm looking for you."

My eyes widen in shock and I jump away from her, but I misjudge my landing and break through the shrine floor. Hissing in pain, I look down at my leg and see wood pieces lodged into my thigh. _Well, that's not good,_ I think idly as I pocket my portable air purifier, then I wince in pain as I try to dislodge the wood pieces. _That's_ really _not good._

But I don't have time to dwell on it as Yakumo strolls up to me. Suddenly, I fall down, slipping through the hole, and I land in a place with eyes everywhere.

Wait. What?

"What." I state flatly. Yakumo is sitting on a table, sipping at tea, and I see a spare teacup for me, I suppose. But otherwise, she seems to be in no rush to capture me.

"You've already been captured," Yakumo corrected my thoughts. "This is my world, the border between the outside world and Gensokyo."

"Is that the 'new world' you mentioned?" I raise an eyebrow. She nods, and I hobble to my seat, wincing in pain at every step. "I'm going to need some backstory, Yakumo."

Yakumo's face lights up. "Of course! I fully expect you to blend right in with the others, Kazami."

I stare at her until her smile turns sheepish. "Right, right. Okay. Tell me, Kazami…

_"What do you know about youkai?"_

* * *

><p>I sit there stunned at the large amount of information I've had to process in the past two hours. Gensokyo was a pocket world in a certain area in Japan, and the shrine I'd visited happened to be the only accessible entrance and exit. Gensokyo itself seemed like a fantastical world, a place housed with horrible youkai, mischievous gods, and other strange and terrible creatures, and brave humans that fend them off, like the "Hakurei shrine maiden", whoever that is. The woman in front of me happens to be a youkai herself, one of the most powerful youkai in the world, a manipulator of boundaries. (To prove it, of course, she plucks a camellia from my personal garden. How quaint. I withhold the urge to chastise her for plucking the flower wrong, but instead I simply wait for her to continue.)<p>

I take a sip of tea and consider my options. On the one hand, it does seem like a fantasy story, but on the other hand…

"If this place really _does_ exist," I speak up for the first time in two hours. "What do you want me to do about it?"

Yakumo raises an eyebrow. "I assumed you already knew."

"You assumed wrong."

"Indeed." Yakumo sips at her tea again. "I want you to join Gensokyo as a resident. After all, nobody in the outside world will miss you."

I stare at her, thoughts whirling. "True. But…"

"But it's a place filled with man-eating youkai, yes," Yakumo smirked. "Really, though, that isn't a problem for you at all."

"Easy for you to say," I shoot back at her. "You're a youkai too. I'm 99% certain you're lying about the state of affairs in Gensokyo just so I can feel more at ease about your world."

Yakumo's eyebrow raises again. I squash the urge to rip it off. "Is it working?"

"Surprisingly, yes," I concede. "When do I start?"

Yakumo smiles. "My, that was rather quick, wasn't it? Are you sure you don't want to think more about it?"

"My only request is that my flowers _must_ come with me," I say. "I've spent far too much time working on my personal garden to let that all go to waste. Other than that, no, I'm content with your offer."

Yakumo keeps staring at me with that damnable smile, but after a while her smile drops and she looks at me, blatantly confused. "You're _serious._ You're willing to drop everything in your life to follow the whims of a woman who is probably completely delusional and join a world where death is certain."

"As long as I have my flowers? Sure, why not?" I sip at my tea finally, and grimace at the taste. "I've put a lot of work into those flowers; I'd really rather not have to start again, honestly."

Yakumo continues to look baffled. I relent and explain my thought process a bit. "You do understand that you apparently warped me from reality to this…abyss of eyes, right? I'm willing to believe quite a lot, but something like this has already turned my entire sense of reality on its head. At this point, I'm not surprised in the concept of this 'eastern wonderland' or anything of the sort."

"…You are a unique individual, Kazami," Yakumo finally says. I shrug, unconcerned.

"I've been called worse before." I stand up. "So, when do I start?"

Yakumo smiles again, and this time it's not a pleasant smile. "Right now!" She snaps her fingers and I feel the effect of gravity on my being. I look down to see what I'm about to fall on.

The ground beneath me turns into actual ground, grass and dirt, except for the small problem that I'm a few meters above it.

"Welcome to Gensokyo, Yuuka." Yakumo's smile is light, teasing, but her eyes are hard and cold, as if remembering something unpleasant. "Enjoy your stay."


End file.
